“Ask me something real hard,” he suggested, “You’re the Sherlock Holmes of this case. I’m only a mighty dumb Doctor Watson. And I’m no good at problems in deduction, even when my thinkbox is moting properly—which it isn’t at present.”
“But there must have been some good reason for the sale of that property,” she persisted. “When Stoker went back to Lawrenceville after the Easter holidays last spring, everything at home was going on just as usual—a big place, servants, cars, horses, plenty of money—everything. Then he came back from school in June, and all that everything just wasn’t!”
“And father had moved into that dump on the Stone Hill River road with a part-time maid-of-all-work, and that 1492 flivver.... Deucedly clear and all that! By the way, do they teach English or just plain Connecticut Yankee at the New Canaan High? Your use of words at times is more forceful than grammatic.”
“Grammatical for choice. You’re not so hot on the oratory yourself, Bill. People who live in glass houses, you know—?”
“Wish we were in one,” was his reply. “Anything with a fire and a roof that sheds water would suit me just now!”
“What are you trying to do, Bill, evade my question?”
Dorothy’s nap had done her good. Though still weary and stiff, she felt tantalizingly argumentative for all that she was wringing wet and horribly chilly. Talking helped to keep up her spirits. Just ahead their torch revealed a branching of the path.
“The map says we keep to the right,” announced Bill. “It’s only a step over to the Spy Rock trail now.”
“Glad to hear it—but it seems to me you are trying to evade my questions!”
“Questions?” He chuckled. “They come too fast and furious. And to be honest, how can you expect me to guess the right answers when you don’t know them yourself? You certainly are the one and only human interrogation point tonight.”